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I’m not suggesting that we turn away from our devices, just that we develop a more self-aware relationship with them, with each other and with ourselves.

what would this self awareness look like?

 

The problems raised by Turkle are:

  • we are letting technology take us places we don’t want to go
  • alone together – putting out attention elsewhere. controlling what we see.
  • hiding from each other – having everyone at a distance in amount they can control
  • Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body — not too little, not too much, just right.
    • Human relationships are rich and they’re messy and they’re demanding. And we clean them up with technology.
  • “i’d rather text than talk”
  • feeling like no one is listening to me –> people want an advanced siri as best friend. someone to truly listen
  • we expect more from technology and less from each other
    • why have we come to this? because technology appeals to us most where we are most vulnerable
    • we are lonely, but we are afraid of intimacy
    • we are designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship
    • We turn to technology to help us feel connected in ways we can comfortably control.
  • Phones offer us three gratifying fantasies.
    • One, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be;
    • two, that we will always be heard;
    • three, that we will never have to be alone.
  • i share therefore i am
    • We use technology to define ourselves by sharing our thoughts and feelings even as we’re having them
    • but what happens if we don’t have connection? we don’t feel like ourselves
  • If we’re not able to be alone, we’re going to be more lonely. And if we don’t teach our children to be alone, they’re only going to know how to be lonely.
  • And that’s what I’m calling for here, now: reflection and, more than that, a conversation about where our current use of technology may be taking us, what it might be costing us.
    • There’s plenty of time for us to reconsider how we use it, how we build it. I’m not suggesting that we turn away from our devices, just that we develop a more self-aware relationship with them, with each other and with ourselves.
      • some first steps.
        • Start thinking of solitude as a good thing. Make room for it.
        • Create sacred spaces at home — the kitchen, the dining room — and reclaim them for conversation.
        • Most important, we all really need to listen to each other, including to the boring bits.
  • it’s when we stumble or hesitate or lose our words that we reveal ourselves to each other.
  • Technology is making a bid to redefine human connection — how we care for each other, how we care for ourselves — but it’s also giving us the opportunity to affirm our values and our direction.
  • We all need to focus on the ways technology can lead us back to our real lives, our own bodies, our own communities, our own politics, our own planet.